Seb Hines swears there’s “no secret recipe” to how he saved Pride from despair, but there is one: Seb Hines

The team was a mess.

Franchise was confused.

Many of the players hated the coachand wanted to leave Orlando.

The league itself was going through terrible times. player abuse scandal it cost the commissioner and more than half the league’s coaches their jobs.

It was a restless climate in which Seb Hines became interim coach of Orlando Pride.

Take a bow, Mark Wilf. The DNA of the Pride Championship starts at the top

“Obviously it was a low point for the club and the league,” Hines says now.

Now look at them.

They truly are the pride and joy of Orlando.

In just two years, they had rewritten their destiny, rising from the ashes of despair and standing on the threshold of greatness. They are ready to claim the main prize and are just one victory away from making their name in history.

There are many reasons why the dominant and dynamic Pride will play for the NWSL Championship against the Washington Spirit on Saturday night at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City. General Manager Hayley Carter assembled a squad that set the NWSL’s points record, won the first-ever regular season Shield trophy and set a league record for consecutive unbeaten games (24). The ownership group, the Wilf Family, has invested in star players such as Barbra Banda, whose transfer fee of $740,000 was the second highest in women’s football history.

But perhaps the biggest reason the Pride became the most dominant team in the league is that Seb Hines had the skill and vision to turn chaos into cohesion.

How does this happen? How can Pride go from the abyss of uselessness to the threshold of immortality? How did they go from the epitome of failure to the brink of franchise-defining victory?

Their remarkable success is a testament to their resilience, vision and relentless pursuit of excellence. And it may sound corny and far-fetched, but it’s true: Hines instilled chemistry, camaraderie and culture in a team that was fractured, fragmented and floundering. He transformed the Pride from a complacent group of perennial losers into a cohesive unit fueled by tenacity, determination, and an unwavering belief in each other.

Hines took over a club that, frankly, had been the laughing stock of the league for years. The Pride had a reputation as a franchise that always had stars – players like Alex Morgan and Martha – but never had direction or consistency.

“The Pride have always been a team that had a lot of really good players who couldn’t figure it out on the field.” speaks midfielder Morgan Gotrathan NWSL veteran and member of the US Women’s National Team who joined the Pride this season. “Players were constantly coming and going. From the outside looking in, it wasn’t a place you wanted to be.”

Then a league-wide abuse scandal erupted as team executives and coaches, including Pride coach Amanda Cromwell, were fired over their treatment of players. After Cromwell was fired for workplace discrimination and bullying of players, Hines, a former Orlando City FC player who started as a volunteer coach with the Pride and eventually became a paid assistant, was named interim coach. It was like walking into a hurricane with a dollar store umbrella.

Almost immediately The Pride were defeated by Portland with a score of 6:0. Hines and the players had a heart-to-heart about what needed to change.

“There’s no secret recipe,” says Hines. “We just wanted to create a culture where players want to come to practice, work hard and smile.”

It was something more. Hines also found that the players wanted to work hard, but they wanted to work hard for a coach they respected and an organization they liked. After the embarrassing loss to Portland, Hines began training non-stop twice a day in the stifling heat and humidity of Florida, but he kept the training fun by incorporating competitive games, skill challenges and other team-building activities.

The team responded and went on a seven-game unbeaten run before running out of steam at the end of the 2022 season. However, the Wilf family had seen enough and named Hines the first black head coach in NWSL history.

The Pride’s progress continued last season, with Hines coaching the team to within one shot of making the playoffs. The disappointment of narrowly missing the postseason prompted the team to show up a month early for training camp before the start of their breakout season.

“It all starts with Seb” Pride midfielder Hayley McCutcheon speaks. “First of all, he’s an incredible person and that definitely helps. He and his organization made everyone feel valued and allowed the players to develop a culture at this club based on mutual respect for each other.”

In other words, this path to the threshold of the championship is more than just a story of victories and record breaking. This is a testament to a coach’s ability to see potential where others saw problems.

When Seb Hynes took over, Orlando Pride was nothing less than a cautionary tale of scandal and dysfunction. Now, as they prepare to compete for a championship, they stand as the gold standard for success and a shining beacon of what a team, a sport, and an entire league can aspire to.

Email me at [email protected]. Connect with me on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my radio show Open Mike every weekday from 6 to 9:30 on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen

Next…

Pride vs Spirit

When: 8 Saturday at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City.

TV: VKMG-6